


Small Beginnings

by JeniceM



Series: The Bigger Picture [1]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Baby Ori, Brotherly Affection, Family, Family Relationships - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'll never tell what it is, Kid!Fic, Mama of the Ri brothers, Nameless Characters, because I don't actually know, h/c, implied minor character death, the Brothers Ri, vague mystery illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 05:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeniceM/pseuds/JeniceM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ori’s most precious memories of his family were from the months just before their mother passed. </p><p>He never spoke of it because he wagered the opposite was true for his brothers, who bore much more weight on their shoulders at the time. But he often took comfort in them when Dori and Nori both fought, or when the urge to put a knitting needle through someone’s eye became somewhat overwhelming. </p><p>They were his elder brothers, and they cared about him. </p><p>Even at the worst of times, <i>that</i> he was sure of. </p><p>-----<br/>started out as an exploration on how exactly Ori became so interested in writing and drawing and turned into a study on the Ri brother's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the summary this started out as a story about how drawing and writing/reading became important to Ori (mostly drawing) and slowly morphed into a little study on the Ri brother's relationships with each other. 
> 
> This is hopefully the first in a series of one shots about Ori and his brothers. 
> 
> One thing to know before reading is that everyone seems to have a different way of calculating a dwarf's age, but I just decided to go with something simple, divide the dwarf's age by 3 to get the rough equivalent in human years. Obviously not all numbers are divisible by 3 ;) 
> 
> Also this is not betaed. I was waiting on a friend to do it but she pretty much isn't going to until she's good and ready so....perhaps I'll update with a betaed version sometime in the future haha.

Ori was fifteen when his mother taught him his first stitch. The simplest form of knitting there was, and about all his small, uncoordinated hands could handle. But he enjoyed it because it meant spending time with her, which was a somewhat rare event as she was quite often rather sick.

He would perch on the bed next to her and stick out his little tongue in concentration, trying in vain to make even stitches that didn’t knot up and bunch together in an unattractive mess. And in spite of all his boyhood pride he couldn’t help but smile when his mother laughed good-naturedly at how adorable he was, especially when he grew frustrated and she had to gently untangle his fingers from the yarn and help him start again. She particularly loved the look of awe on his face when he watched her skillfully loop thread over thread of yarn, making quick work of a small square of fabric which she let him hold and study, watching his inquisitive eyes inspect each stitch carefully.

Just like both her boys before, she knew little Ori was bound for greatness, she could see it in those keen little eyes of his.

“Did you practice your runes yet today Ori?” She asked him, already knowing the answer and happy to receive it.

“Yes Mama! Do you want to see?” He asked excitedly, quickly but carefully (as was his way) laying the small square of fabric on the quilt and jumping from the bed without waiting for an answer. She listened with a soft chuckle to tiny feet thudding down the hall to the kitchen where he always did his daily work, wondering at how such a small dwarfling could make so much noise with so little effort.

He thundered back into the room and leapt onto the bed, almost crumpling his parchment under his small body as he flopped onto the quilts. She marveled just as she always did at his neat script and perfect spelling for such a young lad and smiled warmly at the doodle of an axe in the bottom corner of the page; no doubt a copy of the one he had seen Master Dwalin carrying around as he lead the elder Durin boy to training. 

“It’s very good Ori.”                                                                                                  

“Really?” He asked excitedly, his cheeks flushing a similar color to his hair. Always the modest child he was.

“Really. I especially like this part here.” She pointed to the small axe in the bottom corner. Ori looked sheepish, knowing he shouldn’t doodle on his papers, Dori always got after him for that. His mother brushed it off, only smiling brighter. “I didn’t know you liked to draw Ori.” He nodded emphatically, quickly forgetting his embarrassment.

“Well next time, why don’t you draw me a picture all on its own, hm? I’ll hang it on my wall.” His eyes grew large and his mouth hung open in a comical way that would seem mocking on an elder face but which was always endearing on little Ori.  

“Would you really?” He all but whispered.

“I would definitely.” She said back, smoothing the parchment in her hands.

“What should I draw?”

“Whatever you like Ori. I’ll love it no matter what.” His little face turned very serious and determined and he nodded solemnly.

“I’ll do my best.” She had to stifle a hardy laugh to avoid hurting the little ones feelings but darn him he was too adorable for words at times.

A noise sounded down the hall and Ori glanced in its direction. “That’ll be Dori.” He said to himself as heavy footsteps made their way to the room, revealing none other. A soft scowl graced his features as his gaze fell upon his youngest brother.

“Hi brother!” Ori waved excitedly as if he were much farther away.

“What have I said about bothering mother when I’m not here?” He responded, receiving a much more stern scowl from said lass. Ori’s smile faltered and he dropped his hand to the quilt.

“But, I wa-“

“He was not bothering me Dori.” His too old eyes turned to her, softening and she could barely stifle the sigh that very much wanted to leak from her mouth.

“You should be resting.” He was vague and never elaborated on these things when little Ori was in the room but it never failed that a small, knowing frown would find its way to the Dwarfling’s face whenever anyone referenced his mother’s plight.

“I daresay, sitting in bed looking at pictures and knitting isn’t quite as exhausting as it appears Dearest. Not to mention I’m quite capable of deciding when I rest and when I do not, thank you very much.” She placed a warm hand on Ori’s shoulder and squeezed softly. Dori heaved a weighty sigh in return but did not say anything more on the subject. Instead he held up a folded piece of parchment and announced the impending arrival of Nori, his mother’s chronically absent son.

After that there was much talk of what Nori would bring home with him, where he had been these past couple months, and exactly what sort of trouble he had ended up in this time. The conversation was short lived however as Dori quickly found its end in hopes of getting his mother to truly and honestly rest as she should be doing, shooing Ori out as he clutched a small square of knitted fabric in his hands.

That night Ori excitedly awaited a present from a foreign land, fingering the stitches of the small square and studying them quietly while he imagined, blissfully unaware that it probably would not be Nori’s to give.

At seventeen Ori had grown relatively accomplished at knitting, especially for such a young, uncoordinated Dwarf, and he routinely fashioned scarves for his mother, even knowing she would never wear them out of the house. Her bedroom walls were layered in drawings by his light hand which she always told him she loved, even if he himself thought they weren’t very good. He loved to draw them so it wasn’t much lost in the end.

The best part of everything was that Nori was home more often then, of course Ori thought this was simply because he wanted to be with their family. Which made perfect sense of course and was a very valid reason to be home for a young Dwarf. They were very close with their families after all. However he was unaware and rather unsuspecting that there was more to it than that.

Perhaps in the back of his mind he noticed his mother’s coughs lasting longer into the night or that she slept more often during the day, or how tired she often looked, how thin she was getting. But none of these thoughts entered into young Ori’s mind when in the evening each day his two elder brothers would come into their mother’s room and bring him with them and they would all sit on her bed and talk with her and laugh and tell her about their days because that’s what she liked to hear. Then Ori would present his many drawings of that day and his mother would ask her eldest to find a place on her walls for all of them.

Perhaps Ori would notice the slightly forced edges to the smiles that held on his brother’s faces but he would simply shrug them off as the mysteries of older folk,(they never quite made sense). He tried not to think too much on it and reveled in the attention, because not only would his mother smile at his drawings and say how much she loved them, running her hands through his hair and giggling at his red cheeks, his brothers would smile then too and he felt for once they were glad to have him around. Were even glad to be around each other, which was a miracle in and of itself.

There was one particular night Ori would remember with astounding clarity as the years passed.

They had had their routine evening in Mother’s room, the fire had sunken to glowing embers in the hearth and it was that time of night when not even the moon or stars were bright enough to light your roadway. And yet, no one was asleep, least of all little Ori. The coughing from the other room had still not ceased and it sounded strange, like a heavy wheeze and gasp. Ori tried to sleep the best he could, knowing his mother nor his eldest brother would want him out of bed this late at night, but how could he with the noise? With the thought of his mother in the other room, unable to catch her breath. He remembered having coughs before, having awful colds that made his throat scratchy and his chest hurt, how the coughing fits would leave him hot and sweaty and uncomfortable, his stomach aching and his throat raw. His mama always took care of him when he was sick like that, and the more he thought about it the harder it was to stay in his own bed until finally, when he heard whispered voices in the room he reasoned that if he wasn’t the only one up, then it would be ok.

He slipped out of his bed and crept into the hall, peeking around his door cautiously, seeing the shadow of whom he knew was Dori cast through his mother’s bedroom door onto the wall outside. And then he saw Nori fleet from around the corner, mug in hand, through the same doorway. Ori inched his way out from behind his door and shuffled noiselessly down the dark hall to stand just outside the now crowded room and listened. He gripped his own chest at the noise that escaped his mother’s throat and felt panic rise in his own. What if she couldn’t stop? What if she could never catch her breath?

He longed to go into the room, to make sure she was ok, but he worried he would get in the way. He was always in the way with his brothers and they always told him to leave his mother alone when she wasn’t feeling well. So he simply stood there in the hall, his small body a tense ball of nerves listening to his brothers whisper soothing words to their mother that he couldn’t quite catch and trying to take comfort in the fact that at least if she was coughing like that it meant she was still breathing.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but it must have been quite some time because at one point he began to sway on his feet, jerking his eyes open wide as he realized he had fallen asleep standing there. He gripped the wall with his right hand and took in a sharp breath, trying to wake himself up as a shiver went up his spine in the coolness of the night. He listened for his mother’s cough but only heard his brothers’ soft whispers. Panic began to constrict Ori’s throat once more. He couldn’t hear her. Her coughing and wheezing had stopped and no matter that it should have been a good thing Ori could think only of her lying in that bed, cold, not breathing. He tried to shake the thought out of his head before he heard Nori whisper with a deep sigh, “Looks like she’s finished,” and then even quieter, “finally.”

He thought for a moment his heart must have stopped beating and then he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to deny it all. His little hands gripped the bottom of his night shirt and held tight, not knowing what to do. His breath grew short as the thought kept running through his head over and over. It couldn’t be, she couldn’t be gone, she was the one who showed him all the things he loved, who took care of him even though she was sick, taught him how to knit, she loved all his drawings and thought he was smart. She couldn’t be gone! He’d never get to draw her pictures again, or show her his rune’s practice or knit her anything ever again. He’d been working on his first pair of gloves for so long now, unraveling and trying and trying again when he messed up. They were supposed to be for her, what would he do with them now?

Ori couldn’t breathe and opened his mouth wide to suck in a gasp of air, tasting salt on his tongue. Tears streamed down his face in gushes, dripping into tiny puddles at his feet as he tried to stifle his sobs in his hands.

_“Ori?”_  Came a harsh whisper from the doorway startling the little Dwarf so he jumped and bumped into the wall, staring up with streaming, wet eyes at his eldest brother. _“Ori laddie what’s wrong?”_   Dori rushed to kneel in front of his tiny brother, grasping his wrists gently and tugging them away from his mouth. Then suddenly Nori was there as well, shutting the door quietly behind him so their noise, as little as it was, would hopefully not wake their exhausted mother.

“What’s going on?” the words left Nori’s mouth before he could stop them when he heard the shuddering sobs of the tiny Dwarf. Dori barely spared him a glance as he slipped to the floor next to him, still trying to coax their littlest brother into speech.

“Ori, what is the _matter?”_ his only response however was to shake his head back and forth and hiccup another painful sob. This was nowhere near Nori’s area of expertise but seeing the little scamp so broken up left him with a twinge in his chest he didn’t much like, so he sidled up to his baby brother, and wrapped an arm around his slim shoulders, squeezing gently. Without warning he found little arms wrapped more tightly than he thought possible around his neck and Ori’s face buried deeply in his shoulder. He looked at Dori in bewilderment but the elder dwarf only scowled until he slipped his arms around their baby brother.

“Ori…” He whispered awkwardly into his hair, “You’ve got to tell us what’s wrong.” And finally a tiny, muffled whimper of, _“Mama.”_ Could just be heard over the crying. Dori and Nori’s eyes met with mirroring frowns.

“Ori I know it sounded terrible but she is alright.” Ori quickly pulled away from Nori, staring at him with accusatory eyes.

“But you said she was f-finished!” He didn’t whisper at all, as he dissolved in tears once more and Dori let out a short huff of breath, whether in exasperation of Ori or himself Nori wasn’t sure.

“Oh Mahal,” He breathed, “Ori, I simply meant she was done coughing, that she had finally fallen asleep. She is _fine_.” Well perhaps not fine, but she certainly wasn’t “finished”.  However Ori looked unconvinced as he lowered his hands from his face, hopeful perhaps but nothing more. He wiped at his nose, smearing snot across his cheek and Nori grimaced at what was probably drying into his shirt right that second.

“But-”

“No buts Ori, come now-” Dori stood and motioned Nori after him, “see for yourself.” Hefting the child up as he stood Nori wondered if this was a good idea, with the time she had of it before he really didn’t want to wake her again. As exasperating as little Ori’s crying was, his fears weren’t completely unfounded and Nori and Dori both found themselves insistent that Ori was being unreasonable while they warred with the very same fears. “You must be quiet.” Dori warned giving the bundle in Nori’s arms a meaningful look, though he wasn’t as harsh as he would usually be. Ori nodded quickly, sniffling and trying to calm his breathing even though the tightness in his throat wasn’t easing one bit.

Nori opened the door, waving Dori away, knowing he could be much quieter when the need be, and they slipped silently inside. Ori gazed warily at the lump in the blankets and Nori felt his tiny fists clench into his shirt, little fingers digging, almost painfully, into his skin. Trying to avoid all the creaky boards in the floor Nori took careful steps to the edge of the bed where he and Ori both could see their mother’s face peeking out from beneath the blankets, her breath coming in quiet wheezes. Of course she didn’t look perfectly healthy, her skin was pale while her cheeks were flushed and her forehead shone with sweat. But she was indeed breathing and Ori’s tense muscles noticeably relaxed at the sound.

“There, you see?” Dori whispered from behind them. Ori stared for a moment longer before nodding slowly, never taking his eyes off his mother. And just as quietly as before they slipped out the door and shut it with a tiny click behind them. Nori eased his brother to the floor again, who seemed still shaken but at least no longer in tears. The eldest of the three let out a long, shuddering sigh and ran a hand over his face.

“Alright, back to bed, all of us, we’re going to be right vicious tomorrow if we don’t get to sleep soon.” The idea of going into his room alone and attempting to sleep sounded horrible to Ori but the expressions on his elder brothers’ faces quieted any protest he would make. He always was a peace keeper, even as a little child. So he simply nodded his head and sniffed, as Nori gently nudged him towards his bedroom door when he made no move on his own. Reluctantly he opened it and slipped back into his now chilled bed, shivering from more than just cold. He was too young to realize it then but his brothers were feeling the same sort of clammy uncomfortable itch on their skin as he was when they entered their respective rooms. Dori’s tidy and well managed while Nori’s lacked mess only because of his long absence.

After the shuffling of feet on the floor and blankets being pushed aside, all three rooms rang out in silence while the young dwarves tried their bests to simply shut their eyes and leave the days worries behind. The two eldest succumbed to sleep almost instantly, exhausted and drained not having found sleep yet that day, while the youngest tossed and turned and tried to remember the rise and fall of his mother’s chest as she breathed soundly in her own sleep. He’d never be sure how long it took but eventually little Ori found himself in a dream.

Everything started out fine enough, eating breakfast at the table with his mother. It must be a good day, he thought, since she was out of bed and moving about the house. Only she didn’t look very well, dark circles under her eyes and a sheen of sweat on her forehead, she looked exhausted. She smiled at Ori when he asked how she was feeling and opened her mouth to answer him, only nothing came out. Ever so slowly he watched as her skin turned from pale to grey to slightly blue, her eyes losing their focus, turning dull, and her lips a deep maroon color he’d never seen before. His chest ached, like he couldn’t breathe.

_“Mama.”_ He tried to yell but it came out as a whisper. _“Mama.”_ Again, in a hysterical breath and he stood on his chair, reaching desperately across the table towards her when everything fell out from under them. The chairs, the table, it all gave way into nothingness and Ori was scrambling and reaching for the limp form of his mother as she sunk with him towards an unknown destination. All the while he tried to wake her, to yell for her _“Mama! Mama!”_ He tried his best to scream but it was only ever a frantic whisper surrounding frenetic sobs just as hushed and painful in his throat. He couldn’t breathe, and the panic in his chest grew tight and choking when suddenly, he felt something grab him around the middle, yanking him out of the dark.

_“Ori, Ori! Calm down now lad, it’s alright, it’s alright, hush now.”_  The familiar voice and the feel of calloused hands gripping his shoulders brought him out of the blackness in a rush and he gasped in a deep breath, opening his eyes wide and instinctively reaching out and grabbing onto his brother’s shirt. He could breathe, Mahal he could breathe, the panic in his chest had his throat so tight he let out a strangled noise somewhere between a violent cough and a high pitched whine and he was quickly bundled into Nori’s chest. Just in time too, as he let out a wale that would have surely woken the rest of the house.

“Hey now, it’s alright, just a bad dream Ori, calm down, _breathe_.” And he did, though not with much skill, gasping and choking on tears stuck in his throat. “She’s alright Ori, she’s fine, don’t cry, come on now.” Nori’s grip tightened around him ever so slightly as he moved one hand to cup the back of his head. The elder Dwarf tried not to let his own voice quaver at the devastating sounds of his little brother’s cries, not to think of how he’d react whe- _if_ the worst did come to be. When he wouldn’t be able to say it was just a nightmare, just a bad dream and everything was fine. When he would be hurting just as badly. He swallowed his feelings down and ran his other hand up and down the dwarfling’s back, making shushing noises he felt sure sounded ridiculous coming out of his mouth, but that he had always found comforting somehow, coming from their mother, and even Dori at times.

He mumbled incomprehensible comforts to himself as much as to Ori as the boy slowly, but surely calmed himself down, taking deeper and more even breaths. Finally, Nori felt tiny hands pressing away from his chest and loosened his arms to let the lad push himself up. He sniffed harshly and blinked, wiping a hand across his face and taking one deep, shaky breath. His face was splotchy and red, his eyes puffy and sore looking, but his tears had dried.

“Alright now?” Nori asked quietly, squeezing his shoulder gently. Ori nodded slightly in return before shaking his head frantically at his next question. “Ready to go back to sleep?” At this Nori himself took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He wasn’t good at being the one in charge, or getting little ones to do what he said.

“Now, Ori, we all nee-”

“I _can’t,_ what if I have another nightmare? I can’t have- I can’t-” The rumpled dwarf across from him put up a hand, silencing the increasingly panicked sounding pleas of the youngster.

“Alright.” He said with another sigh and again more quietly to himself. “We’ll….” He glanced around the room. “Why don’t we go sit by the fire? It’s quite cold in this house tonight.” Ori nodded with enthusiasm and grabbed Nori’s hand in his own, taking the initiative and dragging him out to the main room, where the embers still slowly smoldered a deep orange.

Ori quickly took his place on a soft cushion in front of the fire, and Nori draped a blanket over his trembling shoulders, hoping it was from the cold but wondering otherwise. Standing in silence for just a moment, he debated sitting down next to Ori or waking Dori. In the end his selfishness won out and he woke their eldest brother, not wanting to face the situation alone, and not much for being the elder, more responsible brother to begin with.

He knocked lightly on the door and found himself lucky that Dori wasn’t sleeping so well that night either. He wondered how Ori’s crying hadn’t woken him, though Nori himself was used to sleeping light, with one eye open so to speak, or in this case an ear. He listened as Dori’s heavy footsteps sounded across the floor and his door swung open to reveal a concerned looking Dori, whose expression quickly changed to surprise, and slight confusion.

“Nori? What do you want?” And perhaps a bit of irritation. The younger of the two scowled in return, eliciting a huff from Dori. “I thought it would be Ori, not able to sleep.”

“Ah, well, you’re half right.” Dori raised his eyebrows and Nori stepped aside to reveal the huddled form of Ori, fully submerged in a knitted blanket, having covered his head in it as well. “He had a nightmare, heard him crying in his sleep.” As quickly as it had left the concerned expression returned, with knitted eyebrows and a deeply engraved frown. “He won’t go back to sleep, the lad-…he’s scared.”Dori nodded with a deep breath and stepped out of his doorway, leaving it open behind him. The younger dwarf watched as he shuffled over to the hearth and sat gingerly down next to their wee younger brother and soon followed. On his way he grabbed a log off the wood pile next to the hearth and set it in the embers, still hot enough to kindle a tiny flame on the edge, spreading slowly outwards until they had a small fire going again. They sat in silence for quite some time, all staring numbly into the flames. Fire could do that to you almost as well as gold, entrancing as it was, until a tiny voice spoke from the mound of blankets between the brothers.

“Is Mama gonna die?”

_“No Ori,_ Ma will be fine, you don’t worry a thing about it.” Dori’s answer came practically before the question was finished, patting the small, blanketed shoulder with a heavy hand. He tried to ignore the pronounced look of disapproval he received from over Ori’s head. And also the wave of righteous indignation that came with receiving such a look form _Nori_ of all people.

“But how do you _know?_ ” Ori’s big, pleading eyes turned to his eldest brother, who blinked, words suddenly escaping him.

“I-because…”

“Because the last healer who was here, you remember the one Ori, she said so, and healers, they know a great deal about these things….Don’t they Dori?”  Ori’s head spun from one brother to the other with a hopeful expression and Dori quickly agreed, again trying to ignore the grumpy expression his younger brother wore, and for the first time in he didn’t know how long, he felt grateful for his brother’s quick tongue and ability to lie without blinking an eye.

“Yes, Ori, that’s exactly right, the healers know what they’re talking about.” He watched the little one tentatively, trying not to give away the fact that no healer had ever said such a thing. His worried brow and pouted lips seemed to relax just slightly but not entirely. He didn’t look as though he believed all together but the strong faith he had in his brothers, whether well-founded or not, was enough to abate his worries for now.

Silence fell on them once more as Ori gazed back into the fire and Nori and Dori exchanged another glance, reaching for anything to distract their littlest brother. The eldest ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath, leaning back against the arm chair that he sat in front of. As he leaned his head back something pointy poked him quite sharply in the nape of the neck and he lifted a hand back to see what it was. Pulling them out in front of him he found a pair of small wooden knitting needles attached to a single unfinished mitten. The needles were the perfect size for little Ori, whom he had bought them for when their mother had begun to teach him.

“Ori.” He said suddenly, holding them out to the lad who glanced at them and then looked at his elder brother questioningly. “Th-these are very nice.” He spoke awkwardly and wished for Nori’s quick tongue, again, the first time he had done so in who knows how long.

“Thank you…” He said back, looking slightly confused.

“Do you think, do you think you could teach me and Nori here to knit like this? I know I would love to learn.” Perhaps he sounded a little too eager, from the increased confusion on little Ori’s face and the exasperation on Nori’s but ignored it.

“But, Brother, you already know how to knit…”

“Well yes, simple things, but I’ve never been able to do the small, more intricate things like mittens and gloves, I wish I had your talent…” (and perhaps he _was_ laying it on a little thick), “anyhow, I’d like to learn.”

“Now…?”

“Well I don’t see why not, what else are going to do on a night like this?” Ori shrugged and gave the tiniest hint of a smile, taking the mittens and needles from his elder brother’s hands.

“Well alright…” He glanced left at his other brother, “do you want to learn too?” He seemed to think the answer would be no, but Dori’s glare from the other side of him put any thoughts of refusal out of his mind.

“Oh aye, very valuable skill knitting is.” Ori’s smile grew and he stood from the blankets, letting them pool around the cushion he had sat on.

“Ok, just give me a minute.” He bound back to his room, somehow managing to keep the noise to a minimum, apparently looking for something. In the mean time the air grew thick between the elder brothers and Dori made a point of not looking at the younger, though he could feel the eyes boring into the side of his head. Stubborn as he was, Nori could always hold out longer, one of the reasons he always seemed to get away with more. In the end the elder brother let out a large sigh and turned a glare in the other’s direction.

_“What?”_ he snapped.

“You know perfectly well _what_.”

“Oh do I?” Nori’s eyes narrowed just a little more.

“You shouldn’t lie to him.” He could barely stop himself from sputtering in response.

“Oh that’s rich, coming from _you._ ”

“I’ve never lied to Ori and you know it!” He almost hissed in return, offended.

“Not _outright_ anyhow, never mind the hundreds of times you’ve told him you’ll be back in a week or two only to be gone for two _months_ , or presents you bring him of such _vague_ origins, or the times more numerous than I could count when you’ve told him you’ll take him with you on some future _adventure_ of yours. If only he knew what sort of _adventures_ you went on, he wouldn’t be so eager to accompany you then.” He knew it was a bit harsh, but stress was running high, he was exhausted, and he downright wasn’t going to take any shit from his little snot of a brother. Not that night.

Nori on the other hand was exercising surprising amounts of self control and though his face turned a nice shade of red he bit back any nasty reply. For once he would be the bigger person, but mostly he was tired and didn’t feel like fighting like they always seemed to be.

“You’re avoiding the issue.” He said simply instead.

“Oh and what should I have told him then?” He said with a huff of breath that belied just how stressed he was feeling.

“You could have told him the truth; that you don’t know.”

“Yes and that would have done so much good.”

“You know if it does happen, he’ll remember what we told him tonight, he’ll be angry about it.”

“Then let him, let him have someone to be angry _at_.” There was one more tense silence, Dori darting a glance back at their little brother’s door before turning back to Nori and whispering at last. “Even if I had told him she might, even if I had told him she _will,_ knowing that it will happen ahead of time won’t soften the blow when it comes. It’ll still hurt him just as much…he’s just a lad, he should be allowed that much for now.” Nori studied his elder brother for a long moment, not bothering to comment on the fact that he had very well said he believed she _was_ going to die. Thinking back on when he himself had been just a lad of 40 or so and his own father had disappeared, when their mother was just starting to show, pregnant with little Ori.

He was reminded of how protective Dori had been of _him_ then, in much the same way. Avoiding ever telling him that he probably wasn’t coming back, just to spare his feelings. It hadn’t in the end, only postponed it and perhaps it was that past anger that made him upset with Dori for lying but in the end he could see Dori’s reasoning rather more clearly than he was prone to admit. He stayed silent and picked at the hem of one of his sleeves.

Just as they were both about to go see what was taking Ori so long he came tiptoeing back into the room with his arms full. Two more pairs of knitting needles, two skeins of yarn, and a small square of knitted fabric that looked like a pot holder. He was slightly flushed and looked almost excited, having apparently forgotten his worries from just a few moments ago.

Carefully handing each of his brothers a pair of the needles and a skein he settled himself back on his cushion between them, then held the little potholder out to Nori.

“Dori doesn’t need this cause he knows how to knit a little already but, when I first learned Mama made me this, so I could study it and try to knit just like this. Since you haven’t knitted before I thought you could use it.” Nori took the offering with gentle hands and smiled when Ori began explaining to him how to knit the first row of stitches. After giggling profusely at Nori’s surprising lack of ability in this area he moved on to his own mittens attempting to explain to Dori just how to knit the thumb onto a mitten.

Nori quickly gave up his massacred version of a pot holder himself and watched on as Dori feigned surprise at how these things were done. He thought Ori must be mightily interested in the subject he was explaining to not notice how obviously Dori was faking things. A good Liar their elder brother was not.

In the end he added two more logs to the fire to keep it going as each of the last crumbled into embers. Eventually he stretched himself out on the floor next to his brothers. Dori was leaned back on the arm chair behind him, Ori with his head resting in his lap, a single completed mitten clutched in one of his small hands. 

**Author's Note:**

> And there we are. I debated for a long time whether to have The Brother's mom actually die or not since I recently discovered that in movie canon she is in fact alive...but having her gone makes my writing future fics in this verse easier so I decided to go with my original plan. Also I read somewhere that I cannot remember that Dori and his brothers all share the same mother but not necessarily the same father, so it's my personal head canon that Dori's dad died and Nori and Ori's father flew the coupe at some point. (I have ideas on a fic for that as well, but goodness me it will probably never get written).
> 
> Oh and you might have noticed I never actually name their mother....because I hate naming previously nameless bg characters, sorry if it's annoying!
> 
> This is hopefully the beginning of a series but I am a pretty unreliable writer so I hoped putting this up might give me a push to work on the others....anyhow I hope you liked it and you'll leave a comment :)


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